The Wild Swans

The project is the creation of a series of kinetic garments that tell the story of “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Anderson. In the fairy tale, 11 princes have been turned into swans from a transformative spell cast by their wicked stepmother. Their sister, the princess, rescues the princes by collecting stinging nettles and knitting them, under a vow of silence and in great pain, into magical shirts so that her brothers can return to their human shape. She is very nearly done knitting them all when she runs out of time; she throws the sweaters onto her brothers to transform them, but the last one is incomplete, leaving her youngest brother forever with a swan’s wing instead of an arm.

On stage, the ample white strapless dress of a still model serves as a screen for all kinds of projections that echo those of a big screen in the background. “Mixing 3D video with certified fairy tale stories and tailoring tradition” is the idea of the atypical Mountain Ash. Intel technology brings to life on the fabric all kinds of patterns simulating embroidery or painting on silk: stripes of neon lights, butterflies flapping their wings, “mapping” of crystal tassels or the northern lights …

the girl in the wood frock
This project is based on a fairy tale in which a girl’s life is changed by what she wears. It is through clothing that the heroine experiences the outside world and the wood dress is both armor and prison for the girl, allowing her to escape the threat of incest while also disguising her true self from the prince.
Each dress in the series is an exercise in controlling one’s most immediate environment and how one navigates such an intimate spatial situation, using covers to filter what we feel by either exaggerating or muting sensation. They are also explorations of material technique and are made using a combination of high and low-tech methods and industrial materials such as printing press felt, rubber, and copper cable. The dresses are built rather than sewn and architectural construction informs their detailing.

felt-dress

Felt Dress is the third dress from The Girl in the Wood Frock series, based on a fairy tale in which a girl runs away wearing a set of dresses that save her life. Each dress is an exercise in controlling one’s most immediate environment. They are also explorations of material technique and are made through a combination of high and low-tech methods, with architectural construction informing their detailing.

安宣美
mobius strip
The young Korean photographer, Ahn Sun Mi lets us discover her through self portraits. She opens up her poetic universe, a world between dream and reality, where nostalgic feelings cradled by childhood fairy tales and the pursuit of her own inaccessible and voluptuous femininity are the essence of her inspiration. Sun Mi envelops in her familiar world of childhood with her sweet self portraits where toys from the past come to reassure her in a friendly way. Soap bubbles, teddy bears, umbrellas and fluorescent wigs seem to travel with her to the Milky Way in her quest to become a mature woman.

La jeune photographe étudiante polonaise Laura Makabresku aime les atmosphères des contes romantiques et elle se plait à se mettre en scène dans des situations melo-dramatiques. “I like to take photos of my own. I imagine fairy tales themes where there are lots of animals, and naked, long haired girls. I like to take portraits but they need to express sadness, contemplation, anxiety.”

Мэнди Грир
曼迪·格里尔
Dare alla Luce
“The immensity of the installations push my own body’s endurance, as I grind up piles upon piles of thriftstore flotsam and jetsam, a remaking into the image of revamped mythological story, amped up on glitter and beads. I wade through fairy tales, archetypes, mythology, allegory and folk tales looking for moments that coincide with my own experience of everyday life, where animals perform us. These narratives are, after all, the ordinary human dramas that perpetually reoccur, until they become mythos.”

安宣美
The young Korean photographer, Ahn Sun Mi lets us discover her through self portraits. She opens up her poetic universe, a world between dream and reality, where nostalgic feelings cradled by childhood fairy tales and the pursuit of her own inaccessible and voluptuous femininity are the essence of her inspiration.

peau d’ane
For Montreal-based designer Valerie Lamontagne, the spark of creativity can come from the most unlikely of sources. In the case of her climate-reactive dresses, Lamontagne found inspiration in “Peau d’Âne,” a French fairy tale that begins with a king’s vow to remarry only when he finds a woman who equals his late queen’s beauty and virtue. Pressed to find a new wife, he concludes that his daughter alone qualifies. (Quel scandale!) The princess delays the wedding by demanding impossible prenuptial gifts, including three dresses made from moonbeams, sunlight, and the sky. Lamontagne recreates these fantastic gowns but with a high-tech twist: Each dress reacts—in real time—to changing weather conditions.

Cyberia

Performance & live computer generated simulation

A postmodern fairytale, Cyberia takes place somewhere in a cold distant East, stretching between and endless imaginary realm and a vast physical space. It is a westwards journey towards a promised future with no arrival and no return. There is no here or there, only a twilight zone between a departure point and a simulated destination. Between digital video projections and a physical setting, using the mechanics of a video-game engine with a motion capture suit, Cyberia is the simulation of an endless pre-climax state where a performer and a CG avatar dance as one to the rhythms of an imaginary West. In a world oversaturated by digital data –mysticism and paranormal are as popular as ever. Emerging technologies are increasingly incorporated in a form of postmodern spiritualism, as Arthur C. Clarke points out: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Fairytale Device Crashed